7 Obvious Spoilers You Missed At The Start Of Movies
5. Saving Private Ryan: It's Obvious Who Survives
Steven Spielberg's war classic Saving Private Ryan opens in 1998 (what was then the present) with a scene featuring an unnamed old man paying his respects at the gravesides of his fallen comrades. He's clearly the film's lone survivor.
The movie then cuts to the battlefields of World War II and a rag-tag band of brothers led by Tom Hanks. A burning question is raised: which one of these soldiers makes it home unscathed? The answer was hidden in plain sight in the previous scene.
The nameless old man - who turns out to be the eponymous Ryan - clearly wasn't a member of Captain John H. Miller's (Hanks) squad because he was wearing a 101st Airborne Division pin on his jacket. Miller and his men belong to Company C of the United States Army 2nd Rangers Battalion.
It's established early on that Ryan is part of the 101st Airborne Division, so eagle-eyed fans should have guessed that Hanks and his brethren completed their mission, even if their ultimate fate was ambiguous at that point.